The magic of products built with design first.
I gotta say - when I first saw this, I thought "What a useless idea - all it does it give you the ability to hyperlink to other websites / apps".
Oh how wrong was I.
This is one of the most simple and intuitive platforms I've seen. It's a classic example of the benefits of thinking design and user first. If Laura and her team continue pushing, I reckon this has the potential to give Basecamp a run for their money. The only features it lacks at the moment are calendar shows, tasks / to-do lists, and discussion boards. Apart from those, the UX is better than Basecamp's I'd argue, especially because you can make it look and feel like it's part of your own website, end to end.
The back end is really basic / bog standard at the moment, but it does work. And a revamp to the back end UX is on the roadmap, so that's very reassuring indeed.
Some things would benefit from a little more customisation / "sophistication". For instance, you can create content pages, which then apply for ALL projects - a Godsend, indeed. It'd be VERY USEFUL if we could customise certain parts of that content, without having to create a separate page altogether. For instance, I want to add unique affiliate links to get my users to refer business and earn money. All of the text on the 'Refer & Earn' page is identical for all users, except for the affiliate link - it'd be good if I could just change the link for each. At the moment, if I change the link, it changes for ALL users.
There are other bugs too - for instance, if a client tries to login to the platform, but inputs a wrong password, it redirects them to the standard (unbranded) wordpress login page, instead of staying on the same page and asking the user to try again / click on forgot password. Thankfully though, once the user enters the right password, they're taken to the client portal and not the WP backend.
There are a good few other bugs, but it certainly is a working product - and an incredibly well designed one at that.
Bullish on the updates and bug fixes. Thanks for creating this work of art! :-)
LauraWilliams
May 9, 2024Thanks for the great review - your comments are all very well thought out and fair.
The backend re-haul is probably the thing I'm most excited to do. When the product was first released everyone commented on how intuitive the backend was. However, since adding new features it has become a little overwhelming. But the good news is, now we know *exactly* how the backend needs to function to enable us to continue to add new features without impacting the UX.
Thanks again! Appreciate you taking the time to help others decide whether Client Portal is right for them :-)